Talk Hearts Daily News Thread

[Del-icious]

Feel as if this had happened under a Tory gvt there would be full on outrage. Seems like the line folk are happy to go with is “well exam results really don't matter anyway and you can appeal!”

The SNP get too much of an easy ride off folk especially on education, the quicker we can get indyp the better because we don't have an effective opposition and the members/voters seem largely to think if the SNP are doing it it must be fine and any criticism of them is an attack on indyp.

It's quite frustrating to see people who vote for them, who would criticise England until their blue in the face for bringing in things which disproportionately effect less well off people totally just wave this off as if it's not a massive failure at the expense of the kids taking exams

Not good enough at all

[Charlie Kelly]

I've just watched Sturgeon at her briefing today explain it and while I can sort of see the point about pass rates rocketing being an issue, I also think there has to have been a better strategy here to deal with this rather than bump folk down because their school's pass rate historically is poorer and let them appeal and hope for the best.

[dokratrow]

https://twitter.com/klo_12/status/129063...21472?s=21

You're allowed to swear on the internet doll

[Vieri]

Pretty ridiculous overall tbh. However the 20% uptick in the pass rate provided by teachers was hardly a realistic estimate.

[Kashinda]

You're allowed to swear on the internet doll

[Zizou]

https://twitter.com/air_intel/status/129...3485490177

[Walter Sobchak]

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/129...26953?s=20

Horrendous.

[Big Physical Acey]

Christ, it's like bloody Beirut over there.

[PHOODLE-OUt]

Bairn got B's in her highers

[Billy Butcher]

'Fireworks' supposedly in Beirut

[Mikey]

[Cheeky Gnando’s]

Pretty ridiculous overall tbh. However the 20% uptick in the pass rate provided by teachers was hardly a realistic estimate.

I'll caveat what I'm about to say by reiterating what I said earlier - that I don't doubt some subjects/schools/teachers inflated their estimates - but how do you know what was “realistic” or not? There's a few reasons why this is an absolute scandal and why looking at this year comparatively with previous years' attainment is wrong.

Kids don't often get presented for exams if they are going to fail them - only usually parental pressure or exceptional circumstances would lead to an obviously failing pupil going into an exam hall. Pupils go into exams and fail them on the day, often unexpectedly, but that doesn't mean they were always going to fail. Ask a teacher to assess evidence and come to a judgement on a pupil that they are presenting for an exam, and they'll say they'll pass. They wouldn't be presenting them otherwise. That accounts for a huge proportion of that uptick.

Second, there was no real guidance on what evidence was to be used to form judgements from the SQA. They refused to do that because they wanted to avoid accountability and the negative PR of, say, only accepting prelims sat months before the final exam (also issues with the consistency in standard of prelims from centre to centre). That meant you could essentially use any evidence to justify a pass - and why would you fail a kid who'd produced evidence that they could pass?

The most important thing is that these kids didn't have a chance to prove themselves in an exam. This is kids being fucked over for a bell curve as though it's a normal year with normal distributions of results - and as though there was an actual exam to standardise against. I get it, you can't just have everyone get an amazing set of results or the credibility of it will be damaged, but this has been a mess from the very outset with no serious plan. Saying that the prelim alone will be considered as evidence would have been a disaster for me, because my classes did poorly in their prelims compared to their overall attainment throughout the year, but at least it would have been fairer than failing kids because their school has historically been low attaining.

First Hearts and now this, fuck the SFA SQA

[Cheeky Gnando’s]

Bairn got B's in her highers

[Kashinda]

Bairn got B's in her highers

Makes a change from her getting D's

[Vieri]

I'll caveat what I'm about to say by reiterating what I said earlier - that I don't doubt some  subjects/schools/teachers inflated their estimates - but how do you know what was “realistic” or not? There's a few reasons why this is an absolute scandal and why looking at this year comparatively with previous years' attainment is wrong.

Kids don't often get presented for exams if they are going to fail them - only usually parental pressure or exceptional circumstances would lead to an obviously failing pupil going into an exam hall. Pupils go into exams and fail them on the day, often unexpectedly, but that doesn't mean they were always going to fail. Ask a teacher to assess evidence and come to a judgement on a pupil that they are presenting for an exam, and they'll say they'll pass. They wouldn't be presenting them otherwise. That accounts for a huge proportion of that uptick.

Second, there was no real guidance on what evidence was to be used to form judgements from the SQA. They refused to do that because they wanted to avoid accountability and the negative PR of, say, only accepting prelims sat months before the final exam (also issues with the consistency in standard of prelims from centre to centre). That meant you could essentially use any evidence to justify a pass - and why would you fail a kid who'd produced evidence that they could pass?

The most important thing is that these kids didn't have a chance to prove themselves in an exam. This is kids being fucked over for a bell curve as though it's a normal year with normal distributions of results - and as though there was an actual exam to standardise against. I get it, you can't just have everyone get an amazing set of results or the credibility of it will be damaged, but this has been a mess from the very outset with no serious plan. Saying that the prelim alone will be considered as evidence would have been a disaster for me, because my classes did poorly in their prelims compared to their overall attainment throughout the year, but at least it would have been fairer than failing kids because their school has historically been low attaining.

First Hearts and now this, fuck the SFA SQA

I think it was a pretty impossible situation to put schools/teachers in and the whole thing seems like a complete shambles. What are other countries doing regarding exams?

[Zizou]

'Fireworks' supposedly in Beirut  

Now seems to be changing to highly explosive materials being stored in a densely populated area. 2500 injured. Some of the footage is beyond belief.

[Billy Butcher]

Now seems to be changing to highly explosive materials being stored in a densely populated area. 2500 injured. Some of the footage is beyond belief.

The video I saw looked like a firework factory had went up but the second explosion was like a massive bomb . You see makeshift terrorist bombs, and even the bombs we drop on women and children baddies in the Middle East, and they all seemed much smaller in comparison.

[Johnny]

Bairn got B's in her highers

Makes a change from her getting D's

Pozzy

Would've also accept something about C's on her chest or something, the parts are there, someone witty finish it off

[PHOODLE-OUt]

Paedos

[Christian Benorchgrevink]

Aye that's all a bit noncey gents